My Parents' Urn

My dear Dad passed away yesterday after a brief struggle with an infection. My Mom, his wife of 58 years, wants to share her final resting place with him. I prepared an urn for two. Please excuse the cold statistics in what follows. I’m trying to help other woodworkers in their similar task. This was actually a very intense, personal, therapeutic project. I feel much better after making it.

Mortuary standard size is 200 cubic inches for 200 pound person. The urn is sized for 400 cubic inches, more than enough for my 150 pound Dad and 100 pound Mom. I made it of quartersawn oak milled to 5/8 thickness. It would have been too beefy at 3/4. The dovetails are simple 7:1 equally spaced. A 1/4 groove holds a 1/4 panel I milled from the same stock. The lid has a 3/4 board glued to it to seal the box and engage the divider. The divider is 1/4 stock in 1/4 groove. I have a sketchup model available here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48672449/urn.skp.

The idea is to pull the divider when my Mom passes to commingle the ashes.

The lid has a small olive wood cross inlay.

The lid inner board is sized lengthwise for a very tight fit so no screws are needed. There’s enough overlap on the lid to tap it off as needed.

I prefer varnish but it has to be in the mail very soon so I finished it with amber shellac and rubbed it with 0000 and paste wax. The finish is stunning, actually, better than the varnish would have been.

Bon Voyage, Dad.

-- Dave, New England - “We are made to persist. that's how we find out who we are.” ― Tobias Wolff

Finding this difficult to write as I made an urn for my dear sister and it re-kindles the emotions and sense of loss you are going through right now. Your love for your parents shines through in your work and your idea of a divider is a beautiful thought.